![]() Whichever rules a nation followed applied equally to its navy and to its privateers. Rather, what constituted international law was a continual negotiation between rules that favored belligerent rights and those that favored neutral rights. In fact, there was no single body of international law accepted by all nations, or even all European nations. Broadly speaking, nations had the right to exercise sovereignty only over contiguous waters that lay within reach of their shore batteries.Īcceptance of the principle of freedom of the seas left much room for disagreement over the rights of neutrals and the rights of belligerents. Grotius argued in favor of mare librum, or freedom of the seas, by which he meant that, by natural law, the oceans are common to all and should be open to all to use without hindrance. ![]() ![]() The law of nations, or international law, as it relates to the sea had its roots in the writings of several 16th- and 17th-century theorists, beginning with the Dutch writer Hugo Grotius, who rejected the claim of the Spanish to dominion over the seas. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the United States based its rules of engagement at sea on the American understanding of the law of nations. ![]()
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